When hauling an AFRIT trailer, downtime becomes drive time, ensuring your business is where it should be - on the road.

NATURAL SUPREMACY. DISTINCTIVE QUALITY.

AFRIT is one of the most respected and innovative trailer manufacturers in Africa. Our effective design and manufacturing processes constantly address the balance between strength, mass and durability. Our fully equipped on-call mobile maintenance and after sales service teams ensure you have support no matter where the road may take you.

And when you consider our philosophy that has been our foundation since 1968: To deliver the lightest possible trailers with uncompromised quality, you’ll never be in doubt which trailer will stand the test of time.

The Present 

AFRIT manufactures trailers for the road transport industry within Southern Africa and is currently the leading trailer manufacturer in South Africa with approximately a 25% market share. With over 30 years experience in the industry, and a product built on a constant drive for optimization and innovation, we remain the number one choice for customers who are looking for more efficient payload and a high return on investment. The increased demand for trailers in the Southern African road transport industry prompted us to invest in highly ophisticated and advanced technology as well as review and streamline our processes and systems. AFRIT grew proportionately with the demand, showing an annual growth rate of 30% per annum since 2004, whilst never compromising on the quality of our finished product.  With a solid infrastructure in place, we are now concentrating on further market penetration, and have already secured large orders from customers such as Chrome Carriers, SABOT and Barloworld Logistics.  

Our vision at AFRIT is to:

• Be sustainable
• Be adaptable
• Never compromise on quality
• Be number one

AFRIT is a family run business, based in Rosslyn, north of Pretoria and we employ a well trained staff contingent of approximately 800. Our management team is proud of the AFRIT product and heritage and to all who work there the words “Quality on Time” are more than just a company slogan, they are a fact that all our customers have become accustomed to!

The Future

AFRIT is currently manufacturing more trailers than ever before, whilst continuously enhancing the product yet unfailingly remaining focused on never compromising on quality. Our reputation of being competitive, innovative and at the forefront of industry is already recognised and sought after by the international market and our future plans include investigating opportunities in foreign markets as far afield as South America and Europe.  The company’s order book already includes customers in Zambia, Uganda, Kenya, Mozambique, Botswana, Swaziland, Congo, Zimbabwe and Namibia.  

The Past

AFRIT as we know it today has been built on solid foundations of family heritage, sound business principles and an uncompromising commitment to quality.  Arend van de Wetering arrived in SA from the Netherlands in 1955 with his wife and 8 children. He had a remarkable affinity for steel and the ability to fashion it into quality automotive components, a skill he passed onto his sons Gerrit, Klaas, Johan and Theo, who all seemed to have the ‘steel-hued’ strain of DNA coursing through their blood. In 1968, Arend and his sons Gerrit and Klaas started Van de Wetering Engineering (PTY) Ltd. Within a short period they were producing vehicles for the military as well as conducting general engineering for the motor and building industries. By the time brothers Theo and Johan joined the family business in the early 70’s, the company had already earned the reputation for operating according to honest business practices and delivering finished products of high quality - business principles and ethics that are still very apparent in the AFRIT of the 21st Century. 

In 1983 the van de Wetering family brought truck trailer manufacturing concern AFRIT (an acronym for Alf Finn Road Industrial Trailers). By 1992 the company ceased its work for ARMSCOR (SADF) and government and by 1994 had transformed into a 100% commercial operation focusing solely on the production of trailers for the road transport industry.